


Tartarus Penitentiary Blues

by Bonymaloney



Series: Fighting It At Every Turn [12]
Category: The Outer Worlds (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Dirty Talk, F/M, Hand Jobs, Little Spoon Max, Tartarus, porn with a small amount of plot, post-game headcanons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:35:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25473967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bonymaloney/pseuds/Bonymaloney
Summary: Max was loud in combat. The boom of his shotgun and the steady stream of invective he kept up generally added to the overall force he projected. Lately, rather than simply promising death, he’d begun adding a new, existential level of threat by telling his enemies that they didn’t exist to begin with. It was funny, if not a little unsettling. He was also noisy when he was injured - Pearl was pretty sure the entire colony had heard about it that time he splashed rapt spit on his arm.So to hear him make a sound like that, soft and surprised, but with a jagged edge of pain… her chest and throat were so tight they burned, even though she already knew what she would see behind her.
Relationships: The Captain/Maximillian DeSoto
Series: Fighting It At Every Turn [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1629799
Comments: 17
Kudos: 27





	1. Chapter 1

It was the sound that did it. 

Max was loud in combat. The boom of his shotgun and the steady stream of invective he kept up enhanced the overall force he projected. Lately, rather than simply promising death, he’d begun adding a new, existential level of threat by telling his enemies that they didn’t exist to begin with. It was funny, if not a little unsettling. He was also noisy when he was injured - Pearl was pretty sure the entire colony had heard about it that time he splashed rapt spit on his arm. 

So to hear him make a sound like that, soft and surprised, but with a jagged edge of pain… her chest and throat were so tight they burned, even though she already knew what she would see behind her. 

Max was leaning against the wall, almost on his knees. He had dropped his weapons, and with his free hand he clutched at his side; an instinctive gesture, seeking comfort despite the heavy armour that covered his flanks. Pearl helped him to the ground. Although it had to be months - a year? - since she’d used it, her training came back to her. She flipped the quick-release latches and removed the damaged plate, placed her hands over the torn mess beneath that had once been part of Max and pressed down. He kept trying to take her hand, his gloves slick with blood, and she kept pushing him aside so that she could maintain the pressure. And all of a sudden, he stopped doing it, and then she wasn’t sure if he was breathing or not. 

She wished the expression on his face was anger, even fury; anything would have been better than the look of disappointed confusion that would be what she had to remember him by. 

Pearl wanted to curl up beside him, to hold him the way he liked to be held, and simply wait until someone showed up to kill her. Her whole body hurt as she forced herself to her feet. Max had given his life for this, she was going to see it through. She would free Phineas, she would deliver the rest of the crew to wherever they saw fit; and then she would take the Unreliable and fly it into the sun. 

She took Max’s shotgun with her and pressed on. She no longer cared what hit her, as long as she hit back harder. Something smashed into her sword arm, rendering it useless, and from that point she switched to the shotgun, firing one handed and imagining Max was with her, made fierce and fearless by his rage. She came to a huge room in the centre of the prison - A bunker of some kind? An exercise yard? She couldn’t conceive of the purpose of a space of that size in such a cramped claustrophobic hell as Tartarus. A giant automechanical that seemed almost the height of the Unreliable itself stood by with its weapons poised. It was bizarre, and frightening. 

Looking for a way to go around it, she came across a terminal in a locked office with a view of the huge machine. Pearl remembered Max teaching her how to hack; a few of the little tricks he’d learned in prison. He’d be all over this with his clever fingers and his clever brain, and that look on his face when he was proud of himself and wanted her to be proud of him too...

She sobbed for a moment, then blinked away her tears and overrode the mechanical. As she walked up to it, she realised she was being watched. The same woman who had threatened her earlier, watching over her from behind a pair of large windows set high into the wall. Pearl waved. 

As she made her way up the stairs, she realised she was grinning so hard her face hurt. Although Pearl thought she’d come to understand some of the terrible things Max had done, his anger and his fears and the lengths he’d gone to to make them go away, she’d always been a little horrified by the sadism in him. The way he’d taunted Chaney before he killed him, like a cat playing with its food. But now she wanted to hurt this woman, this Adjutant, and she wanted her to know she was going to hurt; and she wanted her to be afraid. 

But when she reached the office, Akande started firing on her with a pistol, and Pearl simply raised Max’s weapon and shot her in the chest. The force of the impact sent her body flying against the wall behind her. She hadn’t been wearing armour. She was brave, Pearl thought; a true believer until the end. 

Phineas was saying something, but Pearl just sat on the floor next to her enemy and cried.


	2. Chapter 2

Max had been here before, and he laughed. 

Everything was a circle, a spiral; tightly coiled in on itself the way the code that could build an entire human being was wrapped up in the nucleus of a cell. He had once believed that he was nothing more than the expression of that code; the Grand Equation making use of his brain to solve itself. But his body lay broken on the floor of the Pit, and yet here he was, whole in a way he’d never thought possible. 

Max was the Universe and the Universe was Max. But there were parts of the Universe that called to him more strongly. The smell of leather and grass and static electricity. The feel of warm sunlight through stained glass on his skin. The way Pearl’s carotid pulse fluttered against his lips, and the fierce joy that burned in his chest at the sheer fact that she existed in the world...

The last time he’d almost died in the Labyrinth, Max had placed his life into the hands of the Architect. If he survived, it would mean he was destined to survive. But now he was profoundly aware that he had a choice, had always had a choice. He could lose himself to the Universe, experience everything and feel nothing; or he could go back. It was his to decide; everything was his to decide, with no consequence beside pleasure or pain. 

He felt the weight of the Plan slipping from his non-existent shoulders. The sheer freedom of it made him dizzy; but he knew what he wanted, and he felt himself spiralling down, down…

Max drew in a deep breath, and _fuck_. Agony like he’d never known lanced through him, as though his lungs were filled with shards of crystal. He could taste blood in his mouth, familiar from countless tossball matches and jailyard fights, but he knew this wasn’t simply a matter of a split lip or fractured nose; this was his life’s blood, and he needed to hold on to it. He would have to fight for every breath; but if there was one thing Maximillian de Soto knew, it was fighting. 

When he next opened his eyes, he was lying on a firm, narrow bed in the centre of a tiled room, decked out in cream and pale green. There were stainless steel fixtures and fittings, round lights overhead; and then Max realised where he was, and he panicked. 

Medical care on Tartarus was as desperate as the rest of the place. Max was lucky; he’d never needed more than a dressing or a few stitches, a shot of adrenatime and then back to work. But all the inmates knew about the infirmary. It was clean and clinical and the stuff of nightmares. The corporations tested their products, surgeons learned their craft, and people who went in were never seen again. All that stuff about the book and the hermit and the Unreliable must’ve been some kind of fever dream. He’d been in the Pit and now he was here, and black fucking holes he needed to get out. Had to lay hands on a weapon, a scalpel or something. They couldn’t do this to him - he was doing _well_ , they’d said so, they’d even let him have access to the OSI texts in the Reformatory; was it all just a fucking trick, have him let his guard down so they could - 

His stitches tugged as he sat up, and the pain sent adrenaline surging through him. His mind stopped racing, and he was blissfully free of all distractions except his need to run or fight. He yanked wires and tubes from his body as he hauled himself to his feet, but he barely felt it. Jaw clenched, one foot in front of the other, they thought they could mess with him but he was going to _kill them_...

“Aw shoot, I only stepped out for a glass of water… Mr Vicar?” The voice was utterly familiar, an unusual combination of warmth and tentative; as unique as the young woman it belonged to. Cold horror pooled in his belly, but confusion gave him pause. He knew her from Edgewater, and that had come after. 

Max’s throat hurt, and his voice sounded scratchy and hoarse. 

“Ms Holcomb…what are you doing here, it’s not safe, we have to get out!” 

“It’s ok.” She was coming towards him now, hands out like she was soothing a wild animal, and he felt ashamed. “Junlei’s got Mardets on all the doors… Cap’n don’t think anything’s gonna happen any time soon though. Board needs a new Chairman, so they need to have an extraordinary meeting, and by the time that happens there might not be a Board at all - oh! The Captain! I need to go tell her you’re awake!”

“Wait…” 

Max was starting to remember.

He remembered the last time he’d seen Parvati, muttering furiously under her breath while the rest of the crew took cover, rigging up charges to blast their way inside. Nyoka, whooping and hollering her way across the courtyard before she was swept up in the maelstrom of combat. 

He remembered being in the Chairman’s office. Everyone stank of sweat and adrenaline. Rockwell in person had the unhealthy sheen of someone who used too much Energising Ointment, little beads of sweat at his temples and glassy eyes. It explained his delivery on the aetherwave broadcasts that Max had been hearing for most of his life, bombastic yet ultimately hollow. He taunted them, and his words had such vitriol behind them that Max realised he wasn’t simply goading; that the man genuinely did feel nothing but contempt for the ordinary citizens he was charged with leading. Max knew what that was like, and his anger was mixed with an odd kind of pity. 

“You’re nothing but a hodcarrier in a fancy robe,” the Chairman had told him. Felix, outraged on his behalf, drop-kicked him in the head, and then he’d looked at Max as though he were embarrassed. 

“You’re still a dick though,” he muttered. Max was oddly touched. 

They left the Chairman behind them, dead or unconscious, and went on. Felix had tried the drop-kick move again, only down a flight of stairs this time, so Ellie stayed with him, talking nonsense about serials as she fashioned a splint for his leg. Max and Pearl had pushed further into the Labyrinth, and it had felt as though the deeper they went, the fewer of them remained. He remembered wanting to cry. 

He’d been concentrating on remembering his way through the prison, and then something had exploded in his side. He thought he’d died...

The adrenaline faded from him, leaving him knock-kneed like a newborn canid. He staggered into a steel cabinet, clutched at it for support. 

It was pathetic, but he had no choice. “I need you to help me.”

“There’s no shame in that, Mr Vicar. Don’t worry; I’ll take care of you.”

Such simple, straightforward compassion - he’d been a fool to think her weak. Her arms were bandaged, he noticed now, but she braced her body against his without complaint.

“How are you, Ms Holcomb? And the rest of the crew… the Captain?” 

“Captain broke her arm, and Felix broke his leg. The rest of us got some bumps and scrapes, but we’re ok. After you got hurt the Captain got real mad…”

Max felt weak with relief to hear it. He laughed, even though it hurt a little. 

“I’m sure she did.”

“I’ll go fetch her now. You promise me you’re gonna stay in bed?”

“I promise. And Ms Holcomb… Parvati… thank you.”


	3. Chapter 3

Pearl was half asleep in one of the offices that lined the corridor leading to the infirmary’s surgical wing. It was a change from being half asleep in the overseer’s office, or on board the Unreliable. The world around her felt cold and colourless. Her crew had broken themselves on her word, to save a man who now seemed more fragile and haunted by his past than optimistic about the future. Phineas even wanted her to lead the project, never mind the fact she had less than zero clue about the kind of science he was capable of. After putting her through everything that had happened since Emerald Vale, it seemed like he was suddenly afraid to take any kind of responsibility. She would be furious with him, if she had the energy. 

At the sight of Parvati, her stomach clenched. Her pulse was rushing in her ears, and it felt like an eternity before she realised that her friend was smiling. 

Max was pale and unshaven, with dry lips and huge dark bruises under his eyes; utterly beautiful. She kissed him, buried her face in his neck and ran her fingers through his hair, stiff with dried sweat. He was tired and sore, but his eyes were bright, and he told her he was the happiest he’d ever been. She wanted to ask him why, but by then he’d fallen asleep again. 

Pearl slept the clock around; woke to eat and swallow a few mouthfuls of water, then slept again. It took Nyoka hollering at the top of her lungs to wake her.

Fighting had broken out in the Labyrinth. With the guards and the UDL troopers routed, the resources of Tartarus were fair game; and Stellar Bay, Amber Heights and Groundbreaker all wanted a piece of the action. 

She rubbed the sleep from her eyes. 

“... so why do you need me again?”

The look on Nyoka’s face was a kind of compassionate exasperation. 

“Cause you’re the one they’ll listen to. These people are all here because of you, Captain. That makes you the perfect intermission… intermin… I mean go-between.”

Pearl swung her legs out of the bed and bent to lace her boots. But it was a pain in the ass one-handed, and finally she sighed and got to her stocking feet. 

“Fine. But afterwards, I want some of whatever you’re having.”

Nyoka smiled, and swayed only slightly. 

“I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

The physical fighting stopped soon enough, once the leaders got their troops under control. But it didn’t change the fact that all three groups had risked their lives, had lost people, because they owed her a favour. They were entitled to get what was good for the getting out of it. And if the leadership got involved and started to coordinate things, it could turn what started as a few scuffles over some nice looking crates of food into a war. 

It took some time, and when she left Sanjar, Zora and Junlei were still arguing; but it was productive arguing, not the kind that might turn into shooting. She hoped. The Iconoclasts would take the lion's share of the food and medical supplies. In return, they would send fighters to reinforce Groundbreaker and Stellar Bay against retaliation by the Board. The Mardets would have their pick of the small arms from Tartarus, and Groundbreaker would be first in line for trade when the labs and manufactories on Monarch started opening up. MSI would get the surface-to-air defenses, and also favourable rates when they shipped through Groundbreaker. 

It was mindnumbingly tedious, and also exhilarating. Freeing Phineas had been a personal obligation, one where the outcome still very much remained to be seen. But this… this felt like she’d made a difference, Pearl thought as she walked away. 

When the ship's surgeon decided the injured crew were well enough to move, they packed up the Unreliable and headed for Groundbreaker. Once, not long after they’d met, Ellie had been needling Pearl about the fact that for all her high-minded ideals, her cabin was as big as the rest of the crews’ combined. At a loss for words, Pearl had offered to fight her for it, and Ellie had backed down with a face saving quip. Now, she was finally getting to enjoy the luxury of the Captain’s quarters. Max was in Ellie’s cabin because it was the closest thing they had to a sickbay, and Pearl was in Max’s cabin, to be close to Max. 

Despite his wounds, Max was calmer than she’d ever known him. Pearl did believe that he’d once found comfort in the Plan, but it had always seemed a sharp and brittle kind. Whatever it was that had replaced the Plan for him, he clutched it less tightly, and his grip was all the more secure for it. She told him about her experience brokering the deal on Tartarus, and he grasped her hand, eyes shining. 

“That’s it exactly, Captain! You understand!” He sounded so happy he might burst with it. “You saw the chaos, you accepted it, and you helped find a path through it to the benefit of all. A path they chose freely.”

He sat up, wincing slightly. “So many in the colony are struggling with their burdens in the same way that I was - and there will be more, soon, when the crisis becomes public knowledge. I can ease their suffering, give them guidance, protection… ease their physical suffering too, of course. There will be a clinic.”

He looked her straight in the eyes, holding her hand tightly all the while. Pearl knew what he was asking her. It was very Max, she thought. He’d spent his whole life trying to solve the Grand Equation, only to become convinced it was a lie. Iconoclasm didn’t suit his needs either, so now, uncompromising as ever, he was doing… whatever this was. 

“You’re not worried? Look at what happened to Amber Heights...”

“Well, I’m not quite embracing the chaos. More… giving it a firm handshake. And besides, Amber Heights didn’t have me in charge.”

Calm and arrogant, then, as he lay there utterly contented; the solitary priest of his new religion and not the slightest bit daunted. She loved him so much it hurt. 

They docked at Groundbreaker, and the crew went their separate ways for a while. Ellie and Felix ran wild, living up to the reputation of heartbreakers and life takers that they’d always wanted. Felix’ status as the man who kicked the Chairman in the head meant he’d never have to pay for another drink in his life. 

Parvati took Nyoka under her wing, the way Nyoka had done for her on Monarch. With Charon laid to rest and the Unreliable’s original mission over, Pearl had worried slightly that she might disappear into the depths of the Lost Hope never to be seen again. But Parvati kept an eye on her, invited her to spend time with her and Junlei and talk about the future. And the look on the usually fearless hunter’s face when she realised they were trying to match make for her had been a sight to behold. 

Pearl spent most of her days in meetings. Groundbreaker, SubLight, Monarch; various Byzantines wanting to join the cause, whether out of conviction or because they could see which way the wind was blowing. They’d brought Minister Clarke on board early - her crew’s star struck reaction the first time they’d met him was more than enough of a reason. He had a genuine gift, of communicating the Board’s decisions to the people of the colony in a way that was clear and reassuring; and now he was going to do it for them. The man was so relieved to be free from house arrest that he didn’t seem to mind that he was exchanging one puppet master for another. His only condition was that he would never have to work with Maverick Johnson again. 

She kept herself busy so that she could avoid thinking about one simple fact. The only reason she was in the position she was, right at the heart of things as the colony took shape, was because she was a woman out of time. No corp, no family, no home apart from her ship; impartial. And if she joined Max’s cause, that would no longer be the case. 

Max wanted her to come with him when he went back to Terra 2. No - he simply _assumed_ that she would. Pearl didn’t know what irritated her more, that assumption, or quite how much she wanted it too. To be his partner in his endeavour ( _his wife_ , her brain whispered treacherously); to wake beside him each morning and go to bed beside him every night, and spend the days in between practising real frontier medicine. 

But she’d broken Halcyon - broken it with the aim of putting it back together better, true, but broken it nonetheless. And for all the freedom and the strange, beautiful experiences that the colony had given her, she thought she owed it her best efforts at making it right. It wasn’t ambition - that was another reason for Clarke; Pearl had no desire to be a figurehead - but she thought that this was something she could do, maybe even something she was _meant_ to do. Of all the frozen people aboard the Hope, why else would she be the one to have been revived? She knew that thinking that way was a hangover from Scientism, but it was a powerful one. 

She made her way up the stairs into the Chairman’s quarters. After the Board had been evicted from Groundbreaker, Chief Tennyson had placed their consulate at the Unreliable crew’s disposal. Pearl both loved and hated the master bedroom, with its balcony overlooking the Promenade. When she stood there, all the lights and sounds and excitement of Groundbreaker were spread out before her as though they were hers for the taking, and yet at the same time she was cool and luxurious and above it all. She didn’t want to get too used to it. It was easy to see how people could start thinking like Rockwell. 

She shook her head and turned the handle quietly. The solitary priest was there, sitting up in bed and watching her, and she went to him.


	4. Chapter 4

“Did I disturb you?”

“On the contrary, Captain, I’ve been longing for your return.” Max took her hand and brushed her knuckles with his lips, then guided her down his body until her fingers settled on the stiffness between his legs. He smiled up at her with an expression that was both proud and endearingly hopeful. “I’ve been painfully hard ever since I woke up. For the first time since the surgery, I might add.”

No wonder he looked so pleased with himself. Pearl leaned in and kissed him slow and deep, and it hit her quite how badly she’d been yearning for him, the taste of him and the velvet heat of his lips. 

“... and you’ve been laying on your own in bed thinking about me?”

“I tried contemplating the fact that the electrical impulses within my brain are meaningless, and my desire only exists if I allow it to. Then I tried the relief of my own hand; but to no avail.” He kissed her back. “The only thing I want is you.” 

Pearl knew that wasn’t true, but it was true at that moment, and that was enough. Max kissed her again, plunging his fingers into her hair. She slung one leg over him, feeling the hardness of him against her inner thigh. His hands slid greedily down her back, warm against her shoulder blades as he tried to guide her on top of him; but then he sagged into the mattress, choking back a grunt. She froze. 

“Did that hurt?”

Max’s eyes burned into her own. 

“Don’t stop.”

There was so much she ought to be saying to him, but he was so sure and happy in what he wanted to be. She cherished him, there was no other way to say it. She wanted happiness for him; but she’d found a meaning for herself that was different from happiness; deeper somehow. And she needed to hold onto it, but Laws, how she _wanted_ him…

He reached out and grasped her jaw, drew her back into a kiss that left her breathless. 

She pushed the covers down to his ankles and propped herself on one elbow to let herself appreciate him properly. His long scarred torso stretched out before her as he watched her with hooded eyes. She loved his full lips, the shadow of stubble beneath his cheekbones, the way his larynx bobbed when he swallowed. Pearl ran her finger along his clavicle then down, tracing his ribs, feeling the warm arcs of bone and the beat of his heart beneath. She brushed a single fingertip lightly across his nipple, back and forth until it stiffened and she nipped it between her teeth. Max groaned. 

“By the Void, I’ve missed your hands on me...”

“I missed you too, Max...”

His cock was fat and flushed a dark tan against the pale skin of his belly, curving up to strain arrogantly towards his navel. The corner of his mouth raised in a lazy grin, and he tucked his hands behind his head to fully enjoy her attention. Pearl felt a stab of hot lust deep inside her. He was beautiful, and he was hers, for a little while longer at least. She placed her hand on him, warm skin and soft hairs brushing against her palm as she moved lower with a trail of kisses, worshipping the soft skin below his navel and between his thighs. 

“Tell me how you missed me, Captain. What kind of thoughts occupied your mind?” He sounded amused, but there was heat behind his words. 

Pearl wrapped her hand around his shaft, finger by finger feeling the heat and the stiffness of him. He gasped and canted his hips, trying to thrust into her grasp, but she set a slow and teasing pace. 

“I thought about touching you. Kissing you-“ she leaned in and did just that “-licking the sweat off’ve you right after you take off your armour. Sucking your dick…”

She nipped at his earlobe, swiped her thumb across the tip of him, slick with precum. Max made a needy growling sound, his fingers twisted in the sheets. 

“I - fuck… _Please_ , Pearl, I’m not going to last, I-“

Pearl stroked him a little faster, watching the set of his jaw and the way his throat began to flush. His eyes were tightly shut, his lips parted, his face a picture of anticipation and pleasure. 

“I’d let you fuck my mouth, then pull out and come all over my breasts… let you bend me over the balcony and have me from behind for all of Groundbreaker to see… bend _you_ over the balcony and push my fingers in you til you came. Anyone on the Promenade would just have to look up and they could see you crying with my hand up your -“

Max shouted, wordless with outrage and delight, and she felt his seed spurt across her knuckles, thick and blood-hot. He trembled with pleasure as he came, and she kept stroking him until he grew breathless, with a pained edge to his laughter. His foot was still twitching, and after a while Pearl kicked it gently. He kicked her back, and they laughed together. But Max grew serious as he caught his breath, gazing up at her with his pupils large and dark. 

“Will you stay?” he asked, uncertain, as though he expected her to be on her way again, jerking him off just a single stop on her busy agenda. She supposed it was easy enough to lose track of time in a place like Groundbreaker, even without being confined to a single room. 

“Of course I will. It’s gone midnight.” 

Max gave a contented sigh and rolled onto his side. His breathing grew steady, and she felt him relax. Irritated, she wiped her hand clean on his thigh, and received nothing more than a vague grumble of protest in response. Soon, his chest rose and fell deep and steady, and she knew he was sleeping. He was still exhausted by his injuries, but that did nothing to lessen her frustration. There was a sharp sweet sensation in her groin, and she was wet. 

Pearl kicked off most of her clothes, and lay back down beside him. He gave off a wonderful heat, and his scent was masculine and achingly familiar. She cupped her mound and squeezed lightly, imagining Max’s long, eager fingers about to push inside her, gliding through her slickness, readying her and making her desperate to take his cock... But he was frowning the way he always did in his sleep, dark brows heavy, lashes flickering. She was made wistful by his strong, elegant limbs, his soft little paunch. When he was well, he would go to Terra 2. He hadn’t said so, but she thought he would go back to Stone Forest where he was born, and build his mission there. The thought of being apart from him was painful, and all of a sudden her desire was gone; she was nothing but exhausted. 

She watched him sleep, and after a while she realised that some of the stitches on his flank looked suspiciously like the initials E.F. She knew she ought to tell him, ought to tell him everything, but she could already feel sleep taking her. She wrapped her arm around his waist and held him, kissed the nape of his neck, and let her eyes close.


End file.
